


Marshall Eriksen and the Secret Book

by wordplay



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordplay/pseuds/wordplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marshall doesn't really want to lie to Lily, but he just hasn't learned how to Obliviate yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marshall Eriksen and the Secret Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peganix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peganix/gifts).



> Many thanks to C and M for quick and thorough betas. This would be much weaker without their help, but all remaining errors and instantiations of lame are my own. I couldn't tell if this was really your kind of thing, but it's the first thing I thought of when faced with the prompt and then it sort of took on a life of its own. Happy Yuletide!

#### July 2005

Lily slipped into the bedroom, easing the door closed behind her. Ted and Marshall were just about to leave to meet Robin and Barney at the bar - she'd spent all day setting up her classroom for the coming school year (pencils, glue sticks, reams and reams of construction paper, why is there always so much construction paper?) and she'd begged off to put up her hair, slip into the bath and read her book. She'd finally managed to snag the damn thing back from Marshall and this time she'd shamelessly hidden it in among her sweaters - Marshall was a little scared of the sheer bulk of her out-of-season clothes and would never think to look for it there.

She pulled out the box, unzipped the cover, dug through the first layer of sweaters... no book.

Lily narrowed her eyes, glaring into the distance. "You... _sonofabitch._

#### September 1999

Lily peeked through the open door, peering through the dim dorm room to find Marshall. He sat with his face buried in his hands, his elbows propped on the desk. "Marshall? Oh, hey, Marshmallow, are you OK?" He didn't even lift his head as she crossed the room.

"I hate school. I hate beer and I hate being pre-law and right now I kinda even hate Ted." He pouted, leaning his head back against her belly as she slid her hands into his hair to scratch at his head.

"Oh baby, what's happened?" Lily asked, resting her cheek on top of his hair.

Marshall was quiet for a minute. "Well, it was really bright in here yesterday afternoon and it was just really really hot, so Ted and I thought we would try to fill the windowsill all the way up with empty beer cans so it would reflect all the sunlight. So... we drank a lot of beer, like, a _lot_ of beer, and then Ted started talking about hooking up with Karen again, and it was just so depressing. And then I was late to Government, and Chakravarti totally yelled at me and I have to go in to talk to him tomorrow. And I kinda have work to do but I don't want to do any work." He was silent for a moment, head tipped back, his eyes still closed and his brow furrowed. "I just - it's our last year at school, you know? And it's supposed to be awesome, it's _going_ to be awesome, everybody says their years at school with their friends are totally awesome but right now? I just want to be somewhere else. Somewhere where I can just hang out with my friends and, like, be besieged by badness but always, always win. And there should be ghosts, like _real ghosts_, because ghosts are awesome."

Lily smiled into Marshall's hair. "Baby, come study for children's lit with me."

#### July 2000

"But Lil I'm so _bored_. You're always busy setting up your classroom and you won't let me come in with you to help anymore - "

"Marshall, I can't think about sex every time I'm in my classroom - I can barely even go _in_ the room with the cubbies anymore, and I have to work there," Lily protested.

"- and Ted is at work, like, _all_ the time, and I can only play so much PS2 before my thumbs start to get calloused and I go blind - and I can think of far more awesome ways for those things to happen."

"Yeah you did!" Lily smirked at Marshall.

"So what can I do with myself? You gotta help me out here, Lily."He'd progressed to whining, and was following two steps behind her as she started throwing dinner together.

And that was enough. Lily whirled, putting her hands on her hips. "For a start, you could cook dinner. Or get a hobby, Marshall! Go take photographs in the Park! Develop a summer version of BaskIceBall! Take a pottery class! Join a book club! I don't care, you just have to find something to keep you busy! You're going to law school, and then you have to get a job, and you're not going to have this kind of time anytime soon, so get it out of your system. Go have some fun, goddammit."

The next morning Marshall hit the public library. And he was in luck - the young adult fiction group was just meeting, and as it happens he'd actually read part of one of the books they were talking about, just last year when Lily was taking children's lit and he'd needed an escape one afternoon. The fourth one had just come out, apparently, a huge 700-page yarn that promised a really exciting conclusion - somebody dies!

The group met there at the library every Thursday for the rest of the summer, and they taught him all kinds of things about the themes of the stories. And as a bonus, almost everybody in the book group was somebody's mom, and he got a ton of great dinner ideas from them. He bought a crock-pot the weekend before he started law school, and they had stews and soups all winter long.

#### July 2003

"Marshall, have you seen my new book? I could swear I left it right here on my side of the bed." Lily wandered out of the bedroom, finished pulling up her hair, and dug around on the dining table.

Marshall glanced up from the TV. "That big one? About the magic kids and werewolves and stuff? You just got that, right?"

"Yeah, today in the faculty lounge the new 4th grade teacher was talking about it. I hate those upper-grade bitches; they think they're so much better just because their kids can all read. Tomorrow I'm going to go in there and wow them with my knowledge of snotty British wizardy brats." She'd moved away from the table and was starting to scan the bookshelves. She'd started with the paperbacks at the top, but it was only a matter of time before she made it down to the law books at the bottom.

Marshall dropped the article he was reading and moved to cuddle up to her back, bending to nuzzle her neck and looping his arms around her waist. "Baby, their kids might know how to multiply, but they're not nearly as sexy as you are. Come into the bedroom and I'll show you my magic wand."

The next day, on the way into the law firm where he was working over the summer, Marshall looked around the subway car. Nobody was paying much attention to him, so he pulled out a 3-inch book, covered in the purloined dust cover of a very serious law book, and flipped it open to chapter six. The story was just getting good.

#### December 2004, in an airplane, somewhere between LaGuardia and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport

"Lilypad, I love you, but that is ridiculous."

"What? I'm totally a Gryffindor. What are you _talking_ about?"

"Honey, you have swept in and broken up Ted from evil girlfriends more times than I can count - "

"Those were rescue missions. That was _heroic_!" Lily broke in.

"... you're smart enough to always go after exactly what you want - hey, you got me, didn't you? And in another few years you'll totally be able to out-lawyer me. You are the awesomest, hottest, non-evilest Slytherin _ever_. It's one of the things I like the most about you."

"I don't know whether to hit you or hug you. I'm surprised you can stand to be around my Slytherin-ness."

"You're my girl! And besides, snakes are kind of sexy."

"Hufflepuff."

"Hey, that's not nice!"

#### July 2005, 5 minutes later

"OK, Marshall, I've had enough! What do you keep doing with my book?" Lily railed as she stormed out of the bedroom.

Marshall turned his back fully on the room, opening his eyes wide and subtly nodding his head back toward Ted. "I don't know what you're talking about, Lily. Why would I take your book?"

"I don't know, Marshall, why would you? But in the last week I've found it stuffed in with your law books three times, twice with a fake dust cover on it; I had to jimmy the lock on the trunk of the Fiero to get it back on Monday and Thursday; and last night I found it in your crock pot, for some reason. What the hell is going on?" Lily's hands were back on her hips. Crap.

Marshall's brow furrowed; Lily tapped her foot; Ted stood at the door, shifting his keys in his hand while his gaze darted back and forth between them.

"Lily, can't we have this conversation in private? It's... I mean, it's really personal," Marshall urged.

"No, Marshall, we can't. Because you have been using this entire apartment to hide your stolen goods and Ted lives here, too. What is with you and these... these _kids'_ books?" The look on Lily's face spoke volumes; the expression was just shy of contempt, but it was clear she was confused.

"Fine. You want to talk about this here? OK fine! They're _awesome_ books, OK? They're about one boy's journey past the legacy of his childhood and into adulthood. They're about love and friendship and the eternal fight against evil and bigotry and genocide. And Quidditch - oh my god, Quidditch is like a hundred times better than BaskIceBall. And you keep buying the books but reading them way too slowly! And you never seem to want to talk to me about them, so you don't think I should like them, but I do! And, also, you totally misunderstand Salazar Slytherin's vision for his house!" By the time he was done he was almost shouting and he stood there after his outburst, his chest heaving.

Lily was quietly swaying on her feet, as if to lean back a little from the force of Marshall's frustration. "Hey, you're totally wrong about these books - these are like a huge literary deal, people write essays and books of criticism about them all the time, Marshall. There's nothing wrong with you reading them. I just don't like you sneaking around; it's freaking me out. " Marshall was quiet, looking at Lily from under lowered eyelashes. "Really?" he asked.

"Really. And by the way, I _totally_ already figured out who the Half Blood Prince is. Early, too, _really_ early." Lily walked closer to Marshall and stroked a finger down his sternum.

"Really, Lilypad? Oh, hey, your name is 'Lily'," he said, a light in his eyes.

"Oh, yeah. Wanna talk about it in the bedroom? I'll call you 'James' if you really want me to," Lily muttered, already grabbing him by the shirtfront and dragging him back into the bedroom. Marshall stumbled along after her, his grin growing by the second.

Ted slid his keys in his hand, turning to the door with a smirk. "Oh yeah, pot her, Marshall. Pot her hard!" he muttered as he pulled the door closed behind him.

#### July 2007

"You know, Lily, I think we should go back to the _Lllll_och tomorrow. I was looking on the internet and some of those guys say that they've had their best luck spotting Nessie on the mornings of the full moon. I totally want to try again." Marshall was excited, nodding his head and stumbling over uneven stones on the way into the small coffee shop.

"Marshall, sweetie, we were there three days in the last two weeks! There are other things to do here, and we're heading home in just a few days!"

"Oh yeah, I did some of them last night," Marshall said, puffing out his chest. Lily slid him a sly grin.

"Well that, too, my husband - always that. But there are other things to see, you know." Lily finished ordering their coffee and tugged him into a chair around a small table. "For example, did you know that the very first one of your favorite book series was written in this room?"

Marshall glanced up at Lily. "No way, really?"

"Yup. She wrote the first chapter right here in this room. Seems like a good place for beginnings, don't you think?" Lily smiled fondly at Marshall - their honeymoon was drawing to a close, and she had spent so much of the last few weeks unable to stop smiling. Barney would flay her alive when they got home, but here it still felt right.

Marshall was busy gazing around the room. There were a lot of tourists, now that he thought to notice. It should have been obvious; it was July but a lot of them were wearing the distinctive red-and-gold striped scarves that, let's face it, were kind of ugly if perhaps obligatory for some people.

"Wow, is it always this full of tourists?" he wondered.

Lily shot him a strange look. "I don't know, but there are probably more than usual this weekend, what with the book release."

Marshall stared at her. "No way. _The_ book release? Is that this weekend?"

"Yeah, you didn't know?"

"No, Lily - oh my god, when is it? Today is Thursday, I bet it's tomorrow! Or oh god, no, it's tonight, isn't it? Is the book coming out tonight? _Lily, is it tonight?_" Marshall's demeanor had changed, from bewilderment to cautious excitement to frantic bewilderment - he clutched Lily's upper arms and had just started to shake her a little bit. Any other time Lily might have been alarmed by this behavior, but she knew her man, sometimes better than he knew himself, and she'd seen this one coming, and she just smiled at him.

"I have two copies reserved under your name for tonight. No more shame, baby - and no more sharing books."

"So, wait, did you have this all planned out? You knew this back when we planned the trip?"

"I did. You love the things you love, baby, and I love you. And tonight we're going to stand in a crowd of a thousand nerds in woolen scarves at the dead of midnight in July in Scotland." She smiled broadly and then looked down at the table, rushing to finish with, "And then I'm going to spend the morning in the spa."

Marshall beamed at her. "Yep. Totally Slytherin."


End file.
